Slow-mow May
- The Gardener
- May 26
- 5 min read
May might very well be Scotland’s finest month.
Earlier this week, at around 6.30am, I witnessed three roe deer, perhaps a mother and two of last year’s young, walk past the drawing room windows on the way back down the Glen, having visited the lily pond for a drink.
I suspect this might be a daily ritual judging by the pronounced animal tracks on the grass. The natural world, after all, sees dawn come in just after 3am, so is on the move at least two hours before I stir from the arms of Morpheus.
It is such a privilege having these beautiful animals with their shining russet coats and gentle manner visiting us from time to time. Yes, they do occasionally debud a rhododendron or clip off the pre-emergent camassia flowers but these are but minor inconveniences compared with the joy that these sleek beauties bring us.
This past week, after visibly slowing down over the previous couple of weeks, the grass stopped growing. We have had a month of sunny warm days and the temperature in the garden has regularly exceeded 20° C - most unusual.
Intriguingly, some of our grass has turned brown, revealing buried historic pathways, created very probably 150 to 200 years ago, when the walled garden was originally laid out and fulfilled a very different purpose; not grass but likely blaze paths, along which former gardeners would have trudged pushing barrows and carrying boxes of produce. These ghostly walkways commemorate their toil and diligence, without which this blog would likely not exist.
The Woodland, this month, has provided a welcome cooler environment, with the emergent canopy of the large lime trees forming a translucent light green dome. The rhododendrons are probably at their best now with some lovely strong whites, pinks, purples and apricot shades on display. We planted these 15- 20 years ago and they have become quite sizable shrubs, offering a more dramatic show each year. Just over the drive in the Slope Garden, one of our favourite trees, Davidia involucrata disports large white ‘handkerchiefs’ in the breeze. We only discovered that we had this tree a couple of years ago when it started to produce these bracts for the first time and had strewn them on the grass beneath its branches! It is a lovely thing but sadly its handkerchiefs don’t last much longer than our paper equivalent.
In the Walled Garden, there has been much watering of newly freshened-up pots, as well as the agapanthus which have been relocated, in clusters, to sunny spots in the garden for the summer. Already buds have started to emerge, so this bodes well for their floral firework displays of blue and white! We shall keep them watered (all 25 pots!) with tomato food to encourage more blooms. The little Trachycarpus and Torbay palms have been relocated too, but they are too small yet to make any impact. The cacti have returned outside to sit on their sunny, west-facing windowsills for the summer and the pitcher plant has been tidied up and divided into three, all now living in the Fernery, where they won’t get too much sun.
Outside the kitchen window, the pair of swallows have once again started to enhance their annual nest, flying in and out with little globules of mud, so hopefully the first batch of eggs will not be too far away. We have also noted shorter- tailed house martins flying over the Glen so perhaps nest building is about to begin on the gable-ends of the house too.
For those wondering about what happened to the female mallard duck, reported a few posts ago, she recently emerged from under a spotted laurel, proudly intruducing to the world her new family of no less than 12 ducklings! After a somewhat unsuccessful human-led exercise to gently herd Mrs Duck and her brood to the gates (the lily pond being on the other side), which we abandoned as we did not want to stress her, we eventually left the gate open and watched from afar, only to see Mrs Duck manage the expedition far more effectively herself. She knew exactly where she was going, her fluffy flotilla fanning out after her as they swam across the pond! Doubtless, being a creature of habit, she and her two suitors will reappear next spring…
But back to matters horticultural. In the herbaceous borders, we have been hoeing and staking before the next lot of wind and rain arrives. The first of the early summer herbaceous is starting to bloom, including the light blue spires of delphiniums, the velvet blowsy blooms of Dutch iris in blues and purples , various geraniums with their colour palette of blues, pinks and purples, and, perhaps our favourite of this time of year, the lupins with their dramatic spires of all shades, some bicolour. Sadly, the lupins in the Walled Garden have been under attack from the giant lupin aphid, although happily those in the Drying Green seem unaffected. The latter have more airflow and maybe enjoy cooler conditions, or perhaps lupin aphids can’t fly over high walls!
Talking of the Drying Green, the ancient laburnum has been covered in yellow, scented, pea–like blooms for much of the month. This tree is at its best at this time of year, as it partially disguises the entrance to the Secret Garden, creating an air of mystery as to what might be round the next corner!
Throughout the Walled Garden, the shrub and hybrid tea roses, those celebrants of summer, are about to make a grand entrance but already our climbers are in full bloom. Gertrude Jekyll is plastered with bright Barbie- pink flowers while the more modest Shropshire Lad sports more subtle, lighter pink blooms. Both beautiful, though, and we shall deadhead every few days to keep the show going.
Meanwhile, in the greenhouse, the cosmos seedlings have turned into young plants, ready for planting out at the end of May, and recently we have been pricking out the dahlias. We grow two kinds – a bedder, Dwarf Mixed, and the dark- foliaged, and larger, Bishop’s Children. Both varieties are single flowered, which is better for the bees, coming into their own from July/ August until the first frosts. The Bishop’s Children will eventually be going to join the recently-planted sunflowers in the late summer ‘hot’ bed. We grow a medium height sunflower with dark-red flowers, called Claret.
And finally, the goldfish have been enjoying steadily clearer water for the last few weeks. We have installed a small pond filter to address the ongoing green water problem, and gradually the waters are clearing. We’ve been trying to deal with this with natural bacterial remedies for the past couple of years, to no effect. I think these remedies do work but our expectations might have been a little optimistic, given that we have quite a number of fairly large fish!
Everything is so pretty.